


For the Doubters

by Axolotl7



Series: Fluffy one-shots - Six Months May was "Away" from Shield [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Gen, Team Dynamics, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 16:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5011498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axolotl7/pseuds/Axolotl7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sometimes he even doubts himself. </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A little fic following episode 3x03 and the doubts we're all feeling regarding Coulson's questionable decisions.</p><p>Have faith my friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Doubters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devilgrrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilgrrl/gifts).



> For Devilgrrl because even she doubted and she loves Coulson!

He sees her face everywhere when he’s not looking. A face in the crowds soon swallowed up before he can do more than step in that direction. A black figure at the edges of his vision, whisked away by darkness as he turns to see more clearly. A glimpse of a ghost that haunts his waking moment as much as his dreams.

He never knows if these flashes of her he catches are really her. He knows if he phoned and asked she’d probably not tell him anyway. If it isn’t her, he’s not sure he wants to know.

He knows that it’s her when he catches the outline of a woman sitting at a coffee house across the street from the crowds watching the devastation. Young and old alike with morbid curiosity stretching forwards to see the horrors or to catch them on a phone uncaring of the danger they might be in. A world gone mad. 

One woman, reading a paper, seemingly uninterested in the goings on of the world around her. 

That more than the black leather makes her stand out. He finishes up with the photographs and separates himself from the crowd of gawkers, heading directly across the street.

She doesn’t acknowledge his presence as he pulls the seat out next to her, despite the fact that he knows she is fully aware of both his approach and his presence, there’s no flicker of recognition that he can make out from behind those dark aviators that continue to suggest she’s simply engaged in reading a paper. A nod back to tradition, the oldest ways remain the best. A mockery of his preference for vintage. 

He sits down without hesitation, not waiting for a further invitation. That she’s shown herself to him is the invite. It’s his job to accept.

“Melinda?” he starts their conversation simply because history tells him that she won’t, even if she called this meeting with her presence on a part of an operation he’s undertaking alone. He doesn’t even have to wonder how she knows, he’s not restricted her clearance despite the time away. He trusts her... some days more than he trusts himself.

She sighs in response. It’s an answer as much as the words that follow. She doesn’t give away any reaction that she doesn’t intend to give.

“I heard about that,” she starts and he can’t help that his own face frowns in puzzlement at the rejoinder. He’s never achieved her skill at the blank face, he’s never particularly wanted to. She answers the unasked question, “the first names thing. _Phil_.” Ah, yes. She’d heard about that then. He scoffs lightly more at his thoughts than her emphasis on his first name – of _course_ she knew about the change he’d instituted. She seemed to know more than him on any given day. Her being off site wasn’t going to change that.

“I doubt that’s why you came to talk to me,” he tries to start them back on task.

She takes a moment and he lets them sit in the silence she apparently desires. This is her meeting, she should chair it. Eventually she does, folding the paper and setting it to one side, carefully. Precisely. Once settled a hand rises to slip aviators off, folding them with care onto the table before her. He’s very much aware that it’s a distraction but his eyes can’t help but be drawn to the movement anyway. She was always good at this.

He expects her to call him on being so easily distracted, for there to at least be the edges of humour around her eyes when he looks back up. He’s disappointed that there isn’t. Her eyes are the sharpest part of her and they drill into his own keenly right now. 

“What are you doing?” she’s asks him straight. They both know she doesn’t mean here and now. They both know that she knows. His decisions recently... have been questionable. She doesn’t normally question him though. That she’s here, that she’s come out of her self-imposed isolation to approach him, to question him on his methods or his intentions... his own doubt echoes her spoken words. It tastes bitter in his throat, a lead weight in his stomach. 

He assumes she reads it all in the expression he’s trying to keep more blank than usual or the tension suddenly across his body or maybe just from the lack of verbal response when he’s usually so quick with words. Silence is her skill set, not his.

She leans forwards reaching a hand across the table to settle it atop his own. She never does that. His eyes flick up to hers again in shock.

“The others are worried about you,” she says quietly. _‘I’m_ worried about you’ he hears though she leaves it unsaid.

“I’m trying-” he starts to explain, he doesn’t know himself how much he’d have said or what details he’d have disclosed to her at this early stage but she doesn’t let him get further than that before she interrupts.

“Okay,” is all she says, then pats his hand and makes to leave.

He feels like he’s playing catch up, like someone has just fast forwarded their entire conversation on him and he’s left reeling. His body stands only in echo of her own movement rather than any conscious decision on his part. “Okay?” he finally gets his brain in gear and manages to force air across vocal cords to make sound. It seems to be far more difficult than it used to be.

She swipes up the sunglasses with a careless hand, spinning them about to place them on her now slightly smiling face, concealing her eyes once more, mask back in place.

“I trust you,” she says and that seems to be it. As simple as that. After all that they’ve said, all that they’ve done, the lies and the hurt and the manipulation and she just... she still... trusts him. She believes that he’ll make the right decisions. She doesn’t need to hear the plan or his reasoning or his excuses. She believes in him. It’s humbling. At a time when all around him are doubting him, at a time when he doubts himself, she pops up seemingly out of nowhere and reassures him with her simple faith. He’s stunned. Amazed by her.

“I’ll reassure the others,” she says into the gap of a silence he can’t find the words to fill. Thank you seems appropriate and yet wholly insufficient a response. That she’s in contact with the rest of the team doesn’t even make him bat an eyelash. He does wonder idly how many of them called her about it. He assumes most.

She turns on a heel, leaves the paper, and walks away between the chairs left haphazard by previous occupants.

He realises immediately that he can’t let her go without saying something.

“Melinda?”

She stops but doesn’t turn around.

So many things to say. So many things he shouldn’t.

Don’t go.

Come back.

Soon.

Later.

It doesn’t matter when, just promise me that you will.

He doesn’t ask. He’s not certain that he wants to know the answer.

“The others... they miss you,” he ends up saying. _’I_ miss you’ is what he means, what he hopes she hears as she walks away and he lets her.

 

 

x


End file.
